Things Too Huge to Fix by Saying Sorry

by Susan Vaught

  The image of the hanged man flickered in my brain like something I couldn’t un-see. It didn’t help that the drawing had been of a man who looked like Dad, beard and all. I wanted to rattle my head back and forth to keep myself from putting Dad’s face on the drawing. Indri had her mouth pressed tight, like she did when something made her mad. Was she angry about the drawing, or seeing scary stuff in her own head?

  Dr. Harper kept right on showing us things on his tablet. “This number here, five thirty-nine, is the estimate of Black citizens lynched in Mississippi during that time period, and this one here, forty-two,” he pointed to the smaller number, “that’s White citizens, or other races. They were likely lynched for showing sympathy or support to a person of color. The total comes to five eighty-one, like your grandmother noted. The Tuskegee Institute over in Alabama puts the total number much higher. I believe they have a count of five hundred thirty-eight lynchings in Mississippi between just 1883 and 1959—the most of any state.”

  I didn’t know what to say. In school, we had learned about a boy named Emmett Till who got murdered in 1955 down in Money, Mississippi, because he talked to a White woman. I remembered the photo of his ruined body lying in a casket. Some people thought the publication of that photo, and how mad everyone got about it all over the world, marked the beginning of the modern Civil Rights Movement.

  “I knew about Martin Luther King and Medgar Evars and Malcolm X getting assassinated,” Indri said. “I didn’t know there were this many more.”

  “And many beyond that that we’ll likely never know about,” Dr. Harper said. He turned the page on what Grandma had written, to page six, and showed us other dates. “May I see the next page?”

  Indri and I exchanged looks. Then almost at the same moment, we seemed to come to the same decision, that we needed Dr. Harper’s help if we were ever going to find the answer to what happened between Grandma and Avadelle. I reached into my pack, got the envelope out, and carefully removed the next few pages. All of them looked like page five and six—dates, with notations after the dates.

  “I’ll show you these,” I said, “on one condition.”

  Dr. Harper looked surprised, but he waited. A few butterflies bumped around in my stomach, because I had never tried to put conditions on a grown-up before, much less a professor who was friends with my grandma and knew my parents.

  “Uh.” I swallowed and gripped the pages tighter. “Yeah—well. Grandma wrote this for me back when everything was still a straight line. I mean, this is—it’s mine. She meant it just for me until I decide what to do with it. I showed it to Indri because I needed her help understanding it, and I need your help too, but it’s still mine.”

  “Meaning, I can’t use it for my own purposes,” Dr. Harper said. He gazed at me like he might be looking at a student in one of his classes, all professerly and stern, but his eyes still twinkled just a bit.

  “Yes,” I said, “and you can’t tell anyone about it.”

  His look got even more stern, and the twinkle went away. “Like your parents.”

  “Exactly.” I let out a breath, then gulped another before he spoke again.

  “A secret.” He fussed with his sleeves again, then studied Indri, and came back around to me. “Dani Beans, I don’t much like keeping secrets from childrens’ parents.”

  “I don’t much like secrets either,” I said in a hurry. “So let’s consider this . . . a private project?”

  “Oh, well.” He shoved up one sleeve, about halfway to his shoulder. “That’s completely different. I agree to your condition of privacy in full.”

  Indri gave me a quick thumbs-up when I checked with her, and I handed over the time line.

  Dr. Harper moved through the next four or five pages quickly, shifting them between us so I could see they were an ongoing time line, and mumbling out loud about yellow fever epidemics and Spanish flu, and then flooding in the Delta that left almost a million people homeless. “Here,” he said, pointing to the center of page eight. “In the 1920s when your grandmother was born, Mississippi schools made it illegal to teach evolution—right around the time her favorite writer, Mr. William Faulkner, was buying his Rowan Oak homestead. We got a brief stretch of peace, then World War II came along, and we had more unrest and more riots because the military integrated, but the state didn’t.”

  He showed us page nine.

  1942

  OCTOBER–Lynching of 14-year-old Charlie Lang, 14-year-old Ernest Green in Shubuta, MS, and 45-year-old Howard Walsh in Laurel, Mississippi.

  1943

  MAY–Members of the African American 364th regiment arrived at Camp Van Dorn in Centreville, and refused to be segregated. Local outrage fueled the shooting death of Private William Walker, killed by a local sheriff during a fight with a base military policeman over improper wearing of his uniform. The 364th rioted. What happened next is unclear. Over 1,200 soldiers disappeared from the rosters of the 364th between that shooting and the war’s end. Some historians allege they were killed in skirmishes with heavily armed local citizens in Centreville, and a military cover-up ensued to prevent drop-off in the recruitment of Black soldiers. Other sources indicate many left the South and sought asylum from their local military authorities. The company was shipped out to the Aleutian Islands. If, as Army records indicate, there was no mass killing at Centreville, then between June 1943 until V-J day, an average of one soldier per day disappeared from the rolls of the 364th while they were in the Aleutians, with no explanation of what happened to them. Only 116 survivors have been accounted for to date.

  1944

  OCTOBER–Lynching of Rev. Isaac Simmons in Amite County, Mississippi

  “A maybe-massacre in Centreville,” Indri whispered. “How is it even possible that we still don’t know if it actually happened?”

  Dr. Harper made a pained sound. “What few academic papers I’ve reviewed were disturbing. For example, Private Walker, the murdered soldier, was listed as separated from service, with no indication that he was killed by a local sheriff, or indeed that he was dead at all. Military officials have indicated that the records necessary to get to the bottom of this mystery were accidentally destroyed in a fire in the 1970s.”

  “Do you believe that?” Indri sounded as worried and sick as I felt, and I could tell she was thinking about her dad again. Losing him in battle for his country would be bad enough, but losing him in some covered-up horrible crime because somebody didn’t like the color of his skin—never finding out what really happened to him—it was unthinkable. I put my hand on hers, and she didn’t pull away from me. She wasn’t crying, but her eyes had gone wide and glassy.

  “I honestly don’t know, Indri,” Dr. Harper said. “On the surface, it seems preposterous, until you realize how many other cover-ups, injustices, and instances of ignoring race-based murder happened in this country between 1865 and the late 1960s.”

  The sad thing is, Oops, it won’t make any sense to you unless you understand where I came from. . . . Grandma’s words echoed through my head, like she had spoken them out loud instead of writing them down. In the final analysis, this is my history, and it’s yours, too. Read it carefully before you read about Avadelle and Night on Fire. Understand it before you judge me—and before you judge her.

  I put my hand over Dr. Harper’s before he spoke again, and I gave him the first four pages. He read them quietly. Then he read them a second time, and dabbed at his eyes with his fingers.

  “I see,” he said after a third pass. “I do see.”

  Indri and I looked at him, neither of us sure what to say, or what to ask. I didn’t want to tell him the whole truth of it, that Grandma never got to the part about the fight, because it was so sad, but also because I worried he’d lose interest and stop helping us.

  Dr. Harper piled up the papers he had and worked with them until they fell into a neat stack. “The information that may be in here—well, I don’t need to tell you, many publishers, both book and periodical, would pay qui
te a bit of money to have it.”

  “The stuff about the feud, Ms. Beans—” Indri started, but I hushed her with a warning glance.

  “I don’t think Grandma wanted a bunch of publicity,” I said.

  “No,” he agreed.

  “She wanted me—maybe all of us that were close to her—to understand,” I said. “And for me to decide what’s best to do with it all. But why did she start way back with Mississippi turning into a state?”

  “I haven’t heard of any of the people Ms. Beans mentions in those first eight or nine pages,” Indri said, pointing to the small stack on the table. “Like Charles Lang or Ernest Green.”

  “The anonymity of those murder victims was a point Ruth liked to make when she discussed this state’s history,” Dr. Harper said. “The true human cost of struggles like the Civil Rights Movement can get pushed aside over time. Once that occurs, mountains of progress can erode almost overnight. Ruth didn’t want that to happen.”

  I thought about the stained glass window with the University Grays, and the unmarked graves in the cemetery behind the stadium. I looked at the papers I had shared with Dr. Harper. A list of forgotten events and forgotten people, murdered because they were Black, or some color other than White, or nice to Black people, or seemingly for no reason at all.

  Who had more right to become ghosts and haunt us, the people on this list who died in a war nobody admitted was a war, or the soldiers who fought in named battles but didn’t even get their own graves?

  Both?

  I had no idea. I felt ashamed, and I wasn’t sure why.

  “How will any of this help Dani and me understand Ms. Beans’s fight with Avadelle Richardson?” Indri asked.

  Dr. Harper pushed up his rolled shirt sleeves so they rested on his bony elbows. Then he moved Grandma’s writing aside, got up and dashed to his desk, and came back with a white piece of paper and a giant box of crayons. Indri and I stared at him as he sat and scribbled on the clean paper with dozens of colors, one right on top of the next. Finally, he took a black crayon and scribbled over the top of the chaos, then smiled at us, and pointed down to the crayon-covered paper.

  “What did I just make here, Indri?”

  She shrugged and he looked at me. Zero idea. The best I could come up with was “Um, a kindergartener mess?”

  He laughed, and it sounded a little like a turkey call. “Indeed. A big, sloppy mess. Let’s say all those colors I started with were events. History. Like the items on your grandmother’s time line.” He touched the black crayon layer. “And this, this is a more recent occurrence.”

  He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a paperclip, then unfolded it and handed it to me. “Here, Dani. Use the end to scratch your name into this mess.”

  “Oookay.” I did it, slowly, forming the D-A-N-I with careful strokes. To my surprise, my name emerged out of the jumbled darkness perfectly clear, in rainbow hues.

  Dr. Harper waited, like he wanted Indri and me to understand what that meant at some deeper level—like his coat-hanging gag.

  “Everything underneath makes the color of her name show through and not be just black or white?” Indri said, in what I thought was a valiant first try.

  “Yes!” Dr. Harper clapped his hands together and beamed at her. “The colors, the events leading up to the recent occurrence, the moment you scratch a word into it, form context. The recent occurrence blocks out so much, and yet when Dani scratches her name, those past events still come shining through. In fact, they determine how her name will look, much more than the darkness of this recent occurrence.”

  “Context,” I muttered. Indri looked completely confused. I picked up a piece of the blank paper, and some crayons. “So, Mississippi gets to be a state.” I scribbled a color. “The Civil War happens.” I scribbled another color on top of that. “And then the Black Codes.” I picked a dark brown for that one. “And lynchings. And the World War II stuff. And the Civil Rights Movement starts.” I added color after color, then layered on the black crayon and scratched Grandma’s name into it. Ruth shined out at me in a new set of rainbow hues, different from how my scratched name had turned out.

  “If all the colors below are the history leading up to Grandma’s . . . recent occurrence,” I said to Dr. Harper, “what’s the recent occurrence? Her fight with Avadelle?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, but something in his voice sounded funny. It made me look him full in the face, and his eyes shifted away from mine.

  He cleared his throat. “If I had to make a guess, I’d say her recent occurrence, her biggest event, had something to do with the night of the Meredith riot, when your grandmother got hurt.” He frowned, and it made his whole face look sad. “I was so out of touch back then, not paying attention to the world outside the library and my books. I had no idea the campus was in such trouble, and I didn’t warn Ruth, you see? She came to Ole Miss with Avadelle to pick up some books from me, for the school where she was teaching, over in Abbeville.”

  “You think the Meredith riot was Grandma’s really big deal, her recent occurrence—not some fight with Avadelle later, after Avadelle’s book came out?” I’m sure I looked as clueless as Indri did.

  Seeming perplexed, Dr. Harper put his hand on Grandma’s papers. “Well of course, I think most serious scholars of the feud agreed that something happened during the riot—perhaps something Avadelle told in her novel, or something she didn’t. Otherwise, why would the publication of Night on Fire have coincided with the end of the relationship?”

  It made sense. And yet, who could know? My brain turned in really fast circles, but I couldn’t come up with the next question to ask.

  Thankfully, Dr. Harper did it for me. “Ruth never told you about her own experiences the night of the riot?”

  I shook my head. “No, sir. She won’t talk about anything to do with that period of time, or Night on Fire, or the feud. What happened to her?”

  “Much of Night on Fire has the ring of truth, but Avadelle has always acknowledged it deviates at the point of the riot.” Dr. Harper folded his hands as he spoke. “And the friendship seemed troubled after that night. Not as close, if you ask me. Avadelle and your grandmother seemed to get past the night of the riot, until the book was released.”

  Indri and I stayed very quiet, listening.

  “That night, they really were on campus, of course, Avadelle and Ruth,” Dr. Harper said. “But Ruth took a fall, and she was laid up a long time—had to go to a hospital out of state. Your dad probably remembers her being away for so long. A few of the Internet feud websites mention it too, but they don’t have details.”

  My mouth came open, but I slowly cranked it shut and tried not to seem freaked out, so Dr. Harper wouldn’t stop talking. I had always known, sort of distantly, about the Meredith riot, and that Night on Fire talked some about Grandma’s past, and involved Grandma and Avadelle and everything leading up to the night of the riot. But I had no idea my grandmother got seriously hurt that night.

  I picked up the time line and paged through name after name, and date after date. Lynched people, awful laws, hate groups, natural disasters, riots, amendments—so much. When I got to the 1950s, each year took up pages all by itself. Did more happen in those years, or did people just know to write it down better, with more details? By the 1960s, each month had a page or more. James Meredith’s name jumped out at me in a 1961 entry. I put it on the table and pointed so Indri could read it too.

  1961

  JANUARY 31–World War II veteran James Meredith formally applies to the University of Mississippi, stating on his application to the registrar that he is Black.

  FEBRUARY 4–James Meredith receives a telegram from the University of Mississippi, rejecting his application.

  I looked up at Dr. Harper. “I’ve never really understood how it went from Mr. Meredith applying to Ole Miss to a riot happening. It seems so—so stupid, a riot because a Black man, a war veteran like my dad, wanted to go to college in his home
state.”

  Dr. Harper still wasn’t smiling. He looked misty, like people do when they’re seeing things in their heads that bother them a lot. “Some folks consider the Meredith riot to be the Pickett’s Charge of segregation in Mississippi—the moment everything began to change.”

  “And Dani’s grandmother saw all that in person with Avadelle,” Indri said. “But Ms. Beans got hurt?”

  “Yes, Ruth was one of the riot injuries. Two people died and over three hundred were wounded.”

  Hundreds of new questions flashed through my brain. “But what exactly happened to Grandma?”

  Dr. Harper held up both hands. “She never told me, or to my knowledge, anyone. None of the journalists and scholars who have investigated the Magnolia Feud have much information about it. Her medical records are private, and those haven’t been leaked. As I told you, most feud scholars think the argument didn’t really start until the book came out, but a few, like me, disagree. I think the roots of the disagreement grew sooner. I think the seed got planted the night Mr. Meredith arrived at Ole Miss.”

  Dr. Harper kept his hands folded. He looked far away, totally lost in his own memories. “Nobody can get answers, from Ruth or Avadelle.” He gave a little laugh. “No, especially not Avadelle. If Ruth’s told you the truth of the Magnolia Feud in those papers—well. I can’t imagine. I just can’t imagine.”

  Indri looked like she was about to tell him Grandma never made it to the feud in her papers, but instead she said, “Dani, we need more information about the riot.”

  Dr. Harper jumped a little bit, then seemed to get himself completely back under control. “Well, if it’s details on the Meredith situation you want, Avadelle’s daughter, Naomi Manchester, over at Square Books wrote her thesis on the riot, and she also has books and accounts of what happened. Now, shall we look at the rest of those pages?”

  “We should talk to Naomi Manchester next,” I said, not wanting to give him the rest of the stack. “Dr. Harper could go with us. If you’re willing, I mean, sir.”